


The Prince

by Asterism (cslily)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergence, Galra Empire, Gen, Slavery, Yandere!Lotor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-25
Updated: 2016-10-25
Packaged: 2018-08-24 13:32:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8374012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cslily/pseuds/Asterism
Summary: The Prince Imperial of the Galra has his sights set upon the legendary Black Lion and its pilot.





	

_Just survive another day,_  Shiro told himself. _This will pass._

Those were the words that he always said to himself just before his handlers shoved him into the open arena, before the roars of the crowds overwhelmed his thoughts.

He took a long breath to steady himself, in through his nose and out through his mouth. His arm throbbed. The tension in his shoulders was keeping the neural connections open. The hum of energy numbed the connection between the Druid metal and what was left of his natural arm. It strained against his wrist restraints, primed for fight or flight, whatever was necessary.

He had never enjoyed parties.

His handlers prodded him through the doors leading into the grand ballroom.

Today, a hush fell over the room when he made his entrance.

Fans snapped up in front of ladies faces and tufted ears perked to attention. Gold eyes fixed on him with their slit pupils dilating behind jeweled masks.

The music grew louder in the sudden quiet, a lilting arthythmic melody, dutifully strummed out by a chained harpist in the musician’s pit.

His arm throbbed as the butt of a shock stick nudged him forward through the room.

“Is that the champion?”

The ladies of the court erupted into sibilant whispers, tittering behind their ornamental fans and demurely whispering behind lacquered claws. Great rings clacked on their fingers and gem studded layers flashed in the slashes of their dress sleeves. Women and men alike wore ruffled collars this season.

“I thought he might be taller.”

“Will we see him perform tonight?”

“Why else would the prince have him here? Surely he’s not planning to make him sing for us.”

“What is he again? A Hyuu-mong?”

“Goodness, he’s so hairless. What do you suppose their females look like?”

“Not nearly as lovely as our Galran ladies.”

Serpentine tongues cliqued in approval.

The planetary viscount had spared no expenses in hosting his royal guests, even if the emperor would only be making an appearance via hologram. Servants and drones were in every shadow rushing about attending to the needs of the Galra elite.

Every royal palace that he was brought to looked much the same to Shiro. The classic style of Galran architecture featured organic, twisting halls and bristling towers. From a distance they resembled great monsters that had been cleaved open. In this particular palace. towers like broken spines rose around the gates that led to the pleasure gardens, and the mawlike great doors into the grand reception chamber were were set with gilded fangs.

The Galrans were in love with blood and victory and slaughter, and with their champions.

He was grateful that his handlers kept a slow pace as they toured him around the room. His boots were high and stiff, not at all like the articulated armor he was accustomed to wearing, and his gate was accordingly awkward. His handlers had also made concessions to the demands of formality for this occasion. They wore formal ruffled collars at the throats of their dress uniforms, and the shock sticks they carried were gilt and inlaid with gems.

Shiro did appreciate the long bath he had been given in the salted and wine-scented formal baths in addition to the usual decontamination protocols, it being hardly dramatic for one of their gladiators to die of a sudden infection, but he didn’t know why they had bothered with all the finery. They were only looking at his arm anyway.

To see the work of the Druids up close was a rare privilege, and there wasn’t a courtier here who wouldn’t be boasting of it later.

He was driven past a trio of female dancers, each laden with so many jeweled bells that they made their own music as they moved. They were not Galran, which meant they were probably slaves.

Shiro kept his eyes downward at the floor before him. He didn’t care for the decor.

No one ever explained the reasons behind their games and parties that he was forced to make an appearance at, but he liked to guess. The Galran calendar was brimming with commemorative holidays for fallen worlds. A new victory, a centennial celebration of an old conquest. It hardly mattered. Worlds falling to the Galrans were so common they might as well hold festivals to commemorate what Emperor Zarkon had for breakfast. This looked to be yet another Imperial triumph.

Broken pieces of statuary were arrayed around the floor and strange armor was set on stands in alcoves. Weaponry and battle flags brightened the walls. Slave girls danced in gold headdresses once worn by another world’s kings and princesses. Holotapestries showed a green planet in flames under the imperial fleet.

He was relieved when he was taken up a set of great stairs onto the balcony and the chambers beyond. They led him past curtained areas where couches were arranged. The courtiers that lounged here barely registered his presence, content to lie on their couches, taking long inhales from smoking herbs out of gilt bowls. The eyes that looked at him here were wildly dilated. Away from the music, the conversations grew quieter.

Further still and there were no Galrans at all save the formal imperial guard, standing with their spears at parade rest and necks stiff under towering headdresses. But there were women all around, all young and dressed in gauzy robes and veils and strange jewels. They sat together in twos and threes. Some sang, some drank from jeweled chalices, some idly fanned themselves. None of them were speaking with any of the nobility, and none of them looked at him. Every one of them wore collars and cuffs.

Shiro’s remaining arm, the arm that they had left him with, chafed against his wrist restraints.

They brought him to receiving room that opened onto a grand balcony that overlooked the hunting grounds beyond the palace, and stylized statues of the goddesses of slaughter that they revered in this system looking down on them all. Several nobles were gathered, only one of which he recognized. A blow to Shiro’s lower back indicated that he should kneel.

He was well practiced in maintaining his balance while falling to his knees with his arms bound behind him.

He saw polished boots before him, proper boots fitted with armored greaves. It had the look of ceremonial armor.

Shiro saw his face reflected in the mirror shine of leather and metal.

“Rise.”

Shiro rose, but he kept his head lowered.

“My prince,” Shiro said. His voice was flat, measured.

“Our champion,” the Prince Imperial replied. A smile sharpened his cheekbones, and the blue cast to his skin made him look as if he were made of cut ice. “We’ve been awaiting your presence with a great deal of interest. It’s been a long time since I’ve had the opportunity to see you at the games in person. And that was before the Druids… blessed you… for your victories.”

Even if he hadn’t known the prince, he would have seen immediately that he was not like the royals that gathered around him. There was a subtle difference in the way he carried himself, in the way he stood with his body subtly angled away from those who stood closest to him, in the way he stood just outside of an arm’s length from all but his cupbearer. He stood with a wide stance and subtly shifted his weight from one foot to the other as he spoke. He kept a hand near the ornamental buckle on his belt, which looked like a silver mask set with red gems for eyes, where there was most likely a trigger for a vibration shield. A subtle twitch of his ears told that he was alert to noises coming from behind him.

This too, was a man accustomed to fighting.

It was true, then, that Prince Lotor had just returned from his campaign on the outer rim.

The prince held a chalice crafted from a finely bronzed skull set atop a stem set with dark gems. He held it out to his attendant, who poured dark Galran wine from a crystal decanter. A group of courtiers including the planetary nobility were standing idly nearby at a respectful distance, whispering behind their fans. The prince gestured to one man in particular to come closer. Shiro guessed that would be the planetary viscount, because he wore the white crown of the outer planetary lords. He had a wide grin and kept his hands tucked into the long folds of his robes.

“This is… the gladiator. I had the pleasure of seeing this beast perform during your father’s last round of triumphal games. Such a fine talent for carnage!” said the viscount, a sick gold gleam in his eyes.

“Remove his restraints,” said the prince, smiling.

The viscount opened his mouth, then closed it.

All but his cupbearer moved back a subtle pace as his handlers loosed the electroshield cuffs that bound his wrists and kept the entirety of his modified arm immobilized.

The prince removed his helmet and raked a hand through his hair, white as winter fur and worn long. He turned and nodded towards one of his men that stood discreetly aside from the guests. This one stood lurking in the shadows of the palace statuary. It was not a Galran, but a great hulking thing with great tusks that clipped the formal ruff of the imperial guard.

It blinked, seeming to acknowledge the prince’s unspoken command, and it drew its weapon. Its vibrosaber looked at first glance to be simply a formal decoration, but it made a clean slice of the head statue’s head. Their goddess of slaughter’s great onyx eyes began to fall earthwards, before the imperial beast caught it with a grunt, turned, and lobbed it directly at Shiro.

The arm knew.

The arm caught it.

Shiro could only watch as one moment it was hurtling towards him with a slight curveball spin, and then in the next he was palming it in the air in front of him. The arm had moved so quickly the shielding had activated in an iridescent ripple of energy. He had only heard the crush of his fingers into the stone and felt the shock dampeners in his triceps engage. The statue’s head was slightly larger than a man’s. He crushed it into jagged shards that fell at his feet.

After a breath of silence, the nobles applauded politely.

After some whispering, ladies began to find polite excuses to leave and an exodus from the balcony ensued. Even the viscount found some pressing business to attend to.

Shiro stood alone with the prince and his nearest slaves and the desecrated goddess crunching under his boots.

“Did you bring me here to ward off your admirers?”

“That is one reason. Another cup. Now.” He snapped his fingers at his cupbearer. “Warriors deserve a bit of respite before the main festivities don’t they?”

Shiro snapped his head back when a perfumed woman approached him from his left. It must have been the jewelry she wore. Flashes if metal in his peripheral vision were more than enough to provoke his training.

The woman froze where she stood, nearly dropping the chalice in her hands.

The prince scowled at her, even as she mumbled her apology and bowed deeply. He waved her away and she went quickly, crystalline bells on the hems of her skirts tinkling.

Shiro held the obsidian cup in his hand. His real hand. He could feel the warmth of the stone.

It was the custom of the Galrans to drink their wine heated and it had been warmed to keep the temperature. He used to warm his teapot with hot water before pouring in the boiling water that would steep his teabags. That was in another life.

The prince’s cupbearer poured dark wine for him.

He knew that it would taste of iron. Wine brought from the Galran homeworld, the planet they called Doom, was always present at their ceremonies and festivals to be poured as libations to consecrate the festivities, and for celebrating afterward. He had drunk from the cup of victory many times, and tasted it mixed in with the sandy floor of the arena when his face was crushed under his opponent’s foot. It had only ever tasted of ash and metal on his tongue.

He looked down into his cup and saw his scarred face reflected.

The prince noticed his hesitation.

“Don’t tell me that you’ve been listening to those nasty rumors that I poison my opponents before my fights?” His eyes glowed, gold as a cat’s and just as predatory .

“So it’s not poisoned?”

“Not today.”

Shiro raised the cup toward his lips, never breaking from the prince’s gaze.

After he drank, he let the cup fall to his feet. It rang against the crystal floor and rolled among the stone shards around him until the slave woman collected it and then left them alone.

“That girl was new.”

“There's always a new girl. That one was a princess on her homeworld, before I conquered it. Now her world is in ashes. I pushed her father off his throne while she watched, and then I had the royal palace, which she had never left in her pretty, pampered little life, completely razed. Now she pours my wine and tastes my food at banquets.”

“Isn’t it dangerous to keep her so close?”

The man that they called the prince of a hundred thousand worlds shrugged his shoulders dismissively.

“About half the souls here would like to see me knifed or poisoned, if for no other reason that it makes a party much more lively. But with her here, if anyone tried to kill me they would find her with her teeth in their throats for depriving her of the pleasure. “

“Does that entertain you?”

“This bores me. Slaves. Courtiers. It doesn't make any difference. None of them interest me at all. I despise weak things.”

The amount of raw contempt in his voice nearly unsettled Shiro.

“Now come. Walk with me,” the prince said amiably.

They left the noise of the ball behind them. The prince imperial waved away his great tusked guards and his perfumed slaves and he led Shiro through one of the great arched doorways into the twisting halls beyond. The architecture here looked organic in its lines, reminiscent of ribs.

They went across a covered walkway that overlooked the vast pleasure gardens where the royal hunts would be held soon.

Shiro could not remember the last time he was free to walk with his arms at his sides. He looked down at them as he walked.

The prince led him to a set of doors that would have been inconspicuous if not for the skull set over it. Some unlucky alien beast with great antlers that swooped downwards on either side and fused with the wall. Its fangs glowed whitely in the pale fire of the hall sconces.

The prince pushed the doors open and bade him enter.

Shiro stepped into the room. There was no light other than what came from the great arched windows. The sky shone a bitter orange in the distance. He felt a surge of adrenaline rise up, and took in a long sucking breath to steady himself.

The animals here were not a danger. Not anymore.

He stood in a gallery of beasts, all standing in postures of aggression. They were coiled to strike with claws and fangs. They were rearing in contorted postures, locked in battle with each other. Frozen mouths caught in screams of rage. The light from outside threw their shadows towards him.

Some were furred, some scaled. It was a collection of tusks and fangs and claws from a thousand worlds, all hunted to death by Galrans and their princes. Now they were preserved as trophies.

It was almost a relief to be among expressions of genuine fear and rage rather than the polite alien masks. It was something he could understand. The knot in his stomach that he had had since he entered the palace was no longer there.

“Why am I here?” asked Shiro.

Lotor stood at his side, next to his Druid arm.

“Do you know what these are?”

“More of your prizes? Or other champions from your arenas?”

Lotor looked at him, disappointment shading his features. He shook his head and looked upwards to the great beast clawing the air over their heads.

“It’s a memorial. Each and every one of these creatures was the last of their kind.”

“The last of their kind?”

“I thought you might appreciate it, as I do.”

Shiro winced at his words. The skin around his eyes pinched in a pained stare. His hand, his real hand, tremored. He didn’t like to remember the others.

“I don’t want that. I couldn’t...”

“Oh? Is that so? Did the Druids honor you because of your.merciful and self-sacrificing nature? I somehow doubt that. Or have you changed so much since the last time we met?” His lip curled derisively as he spoke.

Shiro knew he was being taunted. He only wondered why.

“May I?”

The prince placed a hand on his arm, jut below the seam between his own flesh and the Druid’s metal. His pristine white court gloves tinted with the faint purple glow that bled through the outer casings from the core.

“It truly is remarkable. I look forward to the day when I can try my blade against it in the arena. Promise me that you’ll last at least that long.”

“If the Prince Imperial wishes it.”

 _I have to get out of here,_ Shiro thought, _and soon._

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
